BIOS key for a Lenovo Ideapad
This is from my comment to a douche named Justin, most agree so yeah, we’re all cyber bully’s now. I left my original post in tact for historical purposes.
The novo button is the far left most button on your poorly engineered laptop, you know…where you usually rest your left palm down (if you have two hands) – under that but on the “front” of the laptop. You’d need to tilt your laptop up to see it I’m sure. It might actually say “Novo”, not sure since I don’t own the unit. You power it on, then click, hit or press that button I guess – not sure what the screen looks like.
Page 12 in the PDF but page 16 if you’re using your PDF reader:
http://www.lenovo.com/shop/americas/content/user_guides/yoga13_ug_en.pdf
Original post below:
One of the dumbest things I’ve seen of late is a Lenovo Ideapad Yoga 13 with Windows 8 on it. You know how Windows 8 boots so “fast”? They trick you into thinking the system is “shut down”, even when you click the dumb gear icon > then click “power” > then click “shut down” IT DOESN’T REALLY SHUT DOWN!!!
It kind of goes into a hibernation mode. Guess what this does then on boot up? IT DOESN’T SHOW YOU THE F2 or F12 OPTION to get into the BIOS. What happened to good engineering? What you need to do then…and this is the dumb part…is…drum roll please…
Hold the power button down until the ideapad, laptop, paperweight, whatever actually shuts off. Doing this in my opinion is horribly dumb because it’s like pulling the power plug on your system. At any rate…hold down the power button (yes, Windows will “turn on” or rather…wake up) and continue holding down the power button UNTIL the ideapad shuts power off. THEN power it back on and you will then and ONLY then see the F2 (setup) and F12 (boot options) menu’s. Furthermore…don’t forget to hit the orange “FN” key so your function keys actually work!
Another trend in laptop design that’s going in the wrong direction…getting rid of the function keys! I think I saw some Chromebooks in the store recently that got rid of the function keys altogether. What is the world coming to if we have no function keys!? :-)
Just wanted to say thanks to “Admin” for the last post. I unfortunately bought a Yoga 13 and wish I hadn’t. Cant afford to replace this and have been trying to turn off the “Fast Boot” for ages. At least now access to the Bios is easier. I agree, Dont re-invent the wheel, leave it alone!!!!
Oh, and by the way, agreed that Justin is an unhelpful, smug, douche. Who probably has minimal tech experience. No computer should require an instruction manual for BIOS access- what happens if the user or a support person has to troubleshoot it in the field?
Thanks for this writeup. I have been trying to figure out how to get into the BIOS of this idiotic Yoga 13 through multiple reboots and for a sysadmin of 15+ years it should *not* require looking up a badly written manual, searching the internet or using a bent paperclip to press a tiny proprietary button hidden on the edge of the laptop.
F keys (and not F keys with a second bloody Fn key held down) have been the staple way of entering BIOS for years- it makes troubleshooting PCs and servers a tiny bit more standard across enterprises.
I am convinced that these Yoga laptops are designed for people who like cute looking machines but who do not have strong or established IT backgrounds- there is so much to dislike about them even aside from this BIOS-access mess.
You’re right, Justin is a dick. And this laptop is a turd.
But thanks for info about the button. I need to boot from a USB stick to clone the drive so I can give this machine to my stupid sister. She’ll think this laptop is great because she actually likes Yoga.
Had you actually read the instructions that came with your Lenovo Yoga 13, you’d know that you don’t need to hold the power button to force the computer to power off in order to enter the BIOS. I won’t spoil how to properly enter the BIOS. I’ll make you look it up yourself. (Hint: Page 12)
Thanks Justin for only sort of helping. Your assumption that I own the laptop or own the manual is wrong, it’s not my laptop. I think I remember looking for a manual but clearly didn’t understand what I was reading (A Novo button? WTF is that?). Either way I had to figure out a solution myself because option 1 – the manual wasn’t clear to me and option 2, looking online was a waste of time because others clearly had this problem also with NO SOLUTION. It still doesn’t speak to the fact it’s 3rd grade engineering. Who doesn’t display boot options on the screen? Flat out dumb and causes everyone to waste time (even you). We’re talking about it now…wasting time.
Please be a decent online citizen next time and post the answer instead of being a smart ass. Just just posting where to go find it (a paper manual) isn’t that useful unless you have a paper manual sitting there and most certainly don’t. Companies still ship hardware with paper manuals? I’m sure most people can’t stand that you didn’t share a real answer in your comment. I clearly found it irritating.
Page 12 of the “User Guide” is useless: http://www.lenovo.com/shop/americas/content/user_guides/yoga13_ug_en.pdf
So is the hardware maintenance manual: http://download.lenovo.com/consumer/mobiles_pub/ideapad_yoga13_hmm_1st_edition_oct_2012_english.pdf
Those are the first two links when I search “yoga 13 manual”, one is a “user guide” and the other is the hardware manual.
On page 32 of this manual which seems to be the user user guide on the first link (but a different link) it says to press the “Novo” button…whatever the hell that is? You happen to have to bounce around to find it, no clear written instructions on how to find the bios button / key option? 3rd grade engineering!
http://www.lenovo.com/shop/americas/content/user_guides/yoga2_ug_en.pdf
So much for the old f2, del’s and f12’s that typically work on most other systems! I love it when copanies try to reinvent the wheel! Like Google and the ChromeBook I mention in my post!
The Novo button certainly isn’t intuitive, what would be intuitive is a boot menu screen or sticking with tradition. I wonder how I got in using something other than the Novo button?
So for all of you that neither I nor Justin initially helped, the novo button is the far left most button on your poorly engineered laptop, you know…where you usually rest your left palm down (if you have two hands) – under that but on the “front” of the laptop. You’d need to tilt your laptop up to see it I’m sure. It might actually say “Novo”, not sure since I don’t own the unit. You power it on, then click, hit or press that button I guess – not sure what the screen looks like.
Page 12 in the PDF but page 16 if you’re using your PDF reader:
http://www.lenovo.com/shop/americas/content/user_guides/yoga13_ug_en.pdf